A worldwide switch to a "more European" work schedule, which includes working fewer hours and more vacation time, could prevent as much as half of the expected global temperature rise by 2100, according to the analysis, which used a 2012 study that found shorter work hours could be associated with lower carbon emissions.

How about good old unemployment? Can we get some credit for that? Offsets of some kind? Or is everyone supposed to back off?

But I love this suggestion! I made my own list of similar suggestions back in 2010, following on an article that said people ought to give up air-conditioning. I had 6 ideas:

1. Your weight should be at the low end of normal, indicating that you are not overconsuming the products of agriculture.

2. You should not engage in vigorous physical exercise, as this will increase your caloric requirements. You may do simple weight-lifting or calisthenics to keep in shape. Check how many calories per hour are burned and choose a form of exercise that burns as few calories as possible.

3. Free time should be spent sitting or lying still without using electricity. Don't run the television or music playing device. Reading, done by sunlight is the best way to pass free time. After dark, why not have a pleasant conversation with friends or family? Word games or board games should replace sports or video games.

4. Get up at sunrise. Don't waste the natural light. Try never to turn on the electric lights in your house or workplace. Put compact fluorescent bulbs in all your light fixtures. The glow is so ugly that it will reduce the temptation to turn them on.

5. Restrict your use of transportation. Do not assume that walking or biking is less productive of carbon emissions than using a highly efficient small car. Do not go anywhere you don't have to go. When there is no food in the house to make dinner, instead of hopping in the car to go to the grocery store or a restaurant, take it as a cue to fast. As noted above, your weight should be at the low end of normal, and opportunities to reach or stay there should be greeted with a happy spirit.

6. If you have free time, such as a vacation from work, spend it in your home town. Read library books, redo old jigsaw puzzles, meditate, tell stories to your children — the list of activities is endless. Just thinking up more items to put on that list is an activity that could be on the list. Really embrace this new way of life. A deep satisfaction and mental peace can be achieved knowing that you are saving the earth.

Harsh, but if people really believed in global warming, they'd have gone in this direction long ago.

Here's some ideas for celebrities who are worried about global warming.Stop living in huge mansions that require a lot of power to run.Make fewer movies/music/books which will reduce press junkets requiring driving to studios that are on air to broadcast your entertainment 24/7.

Considering the dire nature nature of the emergency, these steps hardly seem adequate. Body mass uses calories and produces CO2 even when it's not active. So have your arms, legs, and genitals amputated. This will dramatically reduce your CO2 production, and, most importantly, eliminate that of any potential progeny.

Stop trying to be socially interactive with the whole world. That requires huge servers that in turn require huge enerrgy expenditures. Less google and facebook and more letters with stamps. Stop travelling using planes.While youre at it, move into the caves that OBL vacated when he went to live in a housein Pakistan.No electricity. Your carbon foot print will be nil.

Yes IF the prophets of doom believed their own message they would do so. Until they do, I will live like there's no tomorrow. Heck who'm I kidding? I will live my life this way no matter what those idiots say or do!

CEPR is a librul DEM group and they will use this to advocate for job sharing aka short work week, more govt benefits and to further its goal to Euronize [we need a better word than thatto describe changing America into fat and lazy Europe] the good old US of A.

Come to think of it, if we are not the lazy, slacker country why are we fatter than the Euroweenies?

Speaking of Al Gore, it would be hard to find a person who has a bigger carbon foot print, and who violates more of his own suggestions than that man.

Yet, I watch people on TV defend him, and make excuses because they just can't admit they are suckers. This inability is the only way you can remain a liberal as an adult, you just have to ignore how dumb it makes you and continue "forward".

Hundreds of billions of dollars exploited and the environment is worse for it (i.e. out-of-sight and out-of-mind) and indigence is progressive. They are unwilling to properly define "normal". They don't believe it is an imminent threat. They do believe it represents an extremely lucrative enterprise to advance their political, economic, and social standing.

People like Gore, and Obama, purchase indulgences from special interests, but they do not lead by example because they do not believe what they speak.

Not necessarily. Someone still needs to service all those laptops, which will be done in the office. But you're right, for much of the work done in the office it could be done at home. durin the last hurricane and during holidays our group works from home. And despite a few snafus it worked fine.

edutcher wrote:Isn't that what Andy Cuomo and Nanny Bloomberg are doing?

(not to mention Christie)

Yeah, but that's incompetence at work. Say up front that we are going to let NY sit in darkness longer for global warming.DIdn't London shut down all the power for a few minutes a day as a sign that they are down with solving global warming?This would be a real blackout for weeks. Hell, for the areas that weren't hit by the hurricane we could have blacked them out as well. Imagine if all of NYC had no power for a month how much we would impact global warming!

The Center for Economic Policy and Research is a liberal think tank based in Washington.

"The relationship between [shorter work and lower emissions] is complex and not clearly understood...

In other words, they're pulling theories out of their butts and calling them facts.

It gets annoying to read about yet another group saying that Europe is kinder to the environment, and we should be "just like them." It's a big lie. The United States has always been ahead of the curve, and still is. We could teach them more than a few things.

edutcher wrote:Not necessarily. Someone still needs to service all those laptops, which will be done in the office.

They will?

Why can't they be picked up and replaced by messenger?

In the case of Desktop there needs to be a repository for hardware that is usuall fixed on site by a desktop technician.And someone would need to give the laptops to the messengers from the office. Unless people are going to run desktop Support out of their houses. The other departments though probalby could get away with working all through VPN.

Our world should be like that NBC show Revolution where we lost all electricity. It seemed to lead to an increase in wars, but at least no carbon footprint. And as far as taht's concerned that would cut down on over population a lot through war.Also no electricity leads to no dialysis machines or X Rays, but again, the goal is reducing population.Revolution is about a utopia right?

Whether to use a Kindle or a library book is dependent on your distance from the library, and the amount of energy expended to get there. Be sure to only read older books, so as not to encourage the labor of authors.Much better is to recite epic poetry around what was once a campfire.

See, this is why I don't understand why liberals don't sign up for gun rights. Guns kill people, right? And the fewer people, the less carbon, right? Though you do get some carbon dioxide from the discharge, as Obama so egregiously demonstrated recently.

How does the Center for Economic Policy and Research suggest enforcement? Criminal penalties for overtime?

What loons. We really are seeing the last gasps of the CAGW movement. I fully expect the President to do nothing other than lip service (is that racist?) to the Gaia Worshippers for the balance of his presidency.

@Scott: "It gets annoying to read about yet another group saying that Europe is kinder to the environment, and we should be "just like them." It's a big lie. The United States has always been ahead of the curve, and still is. We could teach them more than a few things."

If they'd listen, Scott. I work for a multi-national company with a big engineering presence in Switzerland. Those guys act exactly as you'd expect Euros to act towards the U.S. -- they are Our Betters, and we should just Do What They Say.

Why? Because Shut Up. It's a real cultural problem.

IMHO the chances of Europe changing their way of thinking is miniscule. France will burn to the ground before Our Betters will even consider giving up their 6 weeks a year.

Those guys act exactly as you'd expect Euros to act towards the U.S. -- they are Our Betters, and we should just Do What They Say.

Reminds me a bit of when I worked for the U.S. subsidiary of a French high tech company as a patent attorney. We had maybe a dozen IP/patent attorneys and related professionals worldwide, mostly in Europe, and only two of us in the U.S. So, every August would roll around, and we would always be in the email chain where everyone was wishing everyone else a great holiday, before they all disappeared for a month, en mass. I would ask why I shouldn't have the same 4 week holiday, along with a couple of weeks annual leave, when I was in Phoenix, which was much hotter in August than where they were living. Yet, I was stuck with my 2 weeks of annual leave, and they had their equivalent of 6, and I always worked over 40 hours a week, and they legally couldn't work more than 35. I think though that the real answer was that we made more money than they did, because they couldn't hire people here to do what we did, for what they paid back in Europe.

What I find interesting is that so many are still playing the AGW card, ignoring that AGW, per se, had been basically discredited on multiple fronts, including, importantly, that it wasn't happening, and, additionally, that the models predicting it were using specious physics and ignoring such trivial factors as solar radiation levels. And, the pesky problems of setting the optimum global temperature (if we could control it) and that there was a good chance that humans would be better, not worse, off if the climate actually did warm.

Point being, that the more knowledgeable climate alarmists had moved onto ACC (climate change, not climate warming) as their current cause, and anyone still pushing AGW had missed the Journalist emails telling them of the change of terminology and subjects to panic over.